The present invention is with respect to an automatic drinking bowl system for animals, more especially cattle, in the case of which a drinking bowl is designed to be moved against a restoring force, with an upright component of motion, through a desired distance under the weight of water let into the bowl by way of a water inlet valve and, on water being taken from said bowl, is moved upwards by said restoring force into an upper position in which a water inlet valve is open, the valve being shut in said lower bowl position.
Such a drinking bowl system is to be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,802,395 while a further system on much the same lines for watering cattle is to be seen in British Pat. No. 577,500.
Such known systems have the same design shortcoming that, on drinking water being run into the bowl, the moving bowl is acted upon by disturbing forces having an undesired effect on exact control of the motion of the bowl and, for this reason, on the measuring out of the desired amount of water or on the control of the water rate. The water moving downwards on to the moving bowl is responsible, because of its speed of flow and reaction forces, for a disturbing effect stopping exact control of the water amount or water rate so as to be dependent on the angle of the drinking bowl, such a disturbing effect increasing with the rate of water inlet.
If, in the case of known systems, the flow rate is greatly increased, a force is produced about, and at some distance from the turnpin supporting the bowl so that it may well be that the drinking bowl is moved into a position such that the valve will be kept open even when the bowl is in fact full of water to the desired level, the water then running over the top edge of the drinking bowl.
Furthermore, in the case of such known systems, there is the shortcoming that the bowl of the automatic drinking system has to be taken off its support for cleaning, for example for clearing pieces of animal feed or other substances not desired in the drinking water.
In a further known automatic drinking bowl (see French patent No. 652,248) the bowl part is turningly supporting and supplied with water by way of a flexible hose joined with a water inlet opening, such turning of the bowl not, however, being used for operation of the valve, but only for clearing water from it and cleaning purposes.